Thex Factor – American Anthems Week

These are the salient facts before we begin…

1. It is American Anthems Week
And you’d think that would mean lots of hair rock. Poision and Journey and Lynyrd Skynyrd and the like. Sadly, none of the songs are from this album. And in fact, not all of the songs are American.

2. And neither are the special guests
Which bright spark decided to book Shayne Ward and Kylie Minogue for America week. They have quite strong accents that show they are not American. They don’t have even fans in America! Shayne’s song sounds a LOT like Joe McElderry’s: Tinny europop. The best thing about the whole business was the fact his VT was full of shirtless pictures and inflated record sales. He looks furious throughout, which isn’t helped by his shaved head. He nods at the end as if to say ‘yes, I was amazing.’ The audience scream as if they remember who he is. Kylie is better doing a weird song, she doesn’t pretend she’s singing live. She constantly moves the mic away from her face, as part of an elaborate routine, and the singing continues. Magic!

On with the rankings, this week with some positive reinforcement

1. MATT – I like that you sing well
We see a VT of his Bleeding Love cover last week, which was less bleeding love and more of a papercut. He says his performance was rubbish and that he didn’t expect or deserve to survive another week. I call bullshit – he must have realised he was better than Aiden at least. In fascinating news, his parents are really posh. This would explain why his accent is very suddenly and very cartoonishly Essex: it’s all a fake.
He’s redoing his Boot Camp performance, only this time it’s not a surprise. And this time it hasn’t followed Cher taking us to JERUSALURRRRRRRRRM! So it shouldn’t have been as good. And it hasn’t shouldn’t have made me well. And it shouldn’t have made me stop typing snarky notes and just listen. Only it is as good. So good that Cheryl cries and turns to tell Dannii ‘wow!’ So good that all 4 judges give the Standing O. So good that Matt and Dannii cry.
Louis likes him because, and I quote, ‘every week you come out and sing.’ Whereas the others do juggling acts? It’s only Wagner that doesn’t try to sing, Louis. Simon likes that he doesn’t whinge and acts like a man. Yet sings like a girl! He truly is the best of both sexes.

2. REBECCA – I like your pearls
Cheryl tells us we’ll see a glittery firework then the editors show an extended shot of Rebecca looking really angry. Ha! Rebecca then ruins the whole ‘I’m a wallflower with the confidence of a napkin’ thing she has going by telling us she’s a very experienced singer.
She’s singing Make You Feel My Love, which we’ve heard now four times this season. I don’t think her voice suits the song – it’s a little distracting and the song must be song very simply. She opens her eyes a few times though, which is a feat for her. The arrangement is lovely and she is accompanied onstage by real musicians with real instruments. There are some very weird high notes that she insists on repeating. Cheryl and Simon stand up. LW tells her she’s amazing and that she stands out and she nods. Not so humble, this one. Simon and Cheryl tell her the nation loves her and she is an ambassador for Britain. Dermot pisses on the parade telling her how shit she was in rehearsals and then calls her an idiot. I miss Kate Thornton so.

3. ONE DIRECTION – I like Harry. Like, like like him.
I wrote nothing about One Direction in my notes so this is from memory:
1. Liam looked too thin in the VT
2. They sang Kids in America quite well with very fun ‘na na na na’ bits. Just like a Kaiser Chiefs B-Side.
3. There was some contentious debate about the uncontentious fact that Kids in America is not by anyone American. I believe it was cheating but I can see why people would like it.

4. PAIJE – I like that your outfits have become less vulgar
We see a VT reminder of Dannii saying ‘the soul man is in the house’ and doing an obnoxious dance. This short clip just showed why people like Cheryl more. I’m not saying they should – I’m just saying I understand. DM warns us there’s a bootleg afoot. I suppose Cher wasn’t in the mood for a half-assed bootleg this week. Louis adds more dread to proceedings telling he wants to see ‘fun, soulfully, bubbly Paije.’ Louis clearly wants to him to live up to the steretotype of the jolly fatman. Oh the trials of being a fat popstar! How one is judged just for eating Liam’s body weight a day!
He’s singing I’m A Believer first – a song I absolutely hate. He dances very well for a man of his heft and it doesn’t interfere with the vocals. He’s dressed pretty well this week too – a nice grey suit and a big yellow jumper. It goes into Hey Ya, which is pretty cool. If only he’d just done that song. He sounds pretty cool when he rips into it.
The judges like it a lot more than me. Louis compares him to Lenny Henry because he smiles and is black. Simon likes the Austin Powers vibe and thinks it was the best yet. It was groovy, baby in parts but he’s sung much, much better in the past few weeks.

5. KATIE – I like seeing a posh person on this show
We see a VT of her tunelessly screaming her survival song then having a tantrum backstage and sobbing ‘I hate this.’ Way to win fans, Weasel! She tells us she’s not feeling down about being hated and clearly doomed to fail as ‘nothing’s ever easy that’s worth having.’ That’s almost a Cheryl Cole lyric.
She’s singing Don’t Speak , which is a fab and at first I love the strange, violin-led arrangement. Her baby wail whisper suits the song. On the big screen behind there is a video of her crying while wearing a wedding dress and we see Simon hold back some sniggers. Her vocal limitations become, well, quite limiting when the second half of the song requires her to sing and not just coo.
Louis wants us to judge her on her singing, not her whorish ways. Dannii thinks it was contrived and Simon thinks she sung poorly. Katie talks back that emotion means more being able to sing. I think that’s we why she ended up in the bottom two.
Once she learns how much she’s hated, she sings a soul track. It’s more Etta James, we assume. I don’t know the song. There’s lot of Duffy-style vowel-splitting. The chorus is her saying ‘please don’t give up on me,’ which is subtle as the judges can deal with. The highlight comes when she yells ‘You know what, sod it’ and sits down. The way she probably does in supermarkets when Grandmama won’t buy her a Galaxy.
She survives the vote under vaguely-controversial circumstances when Cheryl refuses to vote, then asks Dermot to ask her last, then forfeits her vote. Well it would be more controversial if anyone gave a shit about Treyc.

6. CHER – I’ve liked most of your Jerusalerrrm-free performances
In her VT, she tells us she doesn’t want to come fifth or sixth. She wants to win. She needs to up her game because I’ve put her sixth on a patchy night. We see a terrifying montage of her past performances and all the scary face she’s pulled.
She sings Empire State of Mind and it’s fine. And as always she has the big production – with skateboarders – which is also fine but it’s all a bit flat. We know she can sing. We know she can spit the rhymes of others so there’s nothing new here. There’s not even a tacky, ill-conceived bootleg! It’s just a song on in the background while someone’s telling you about how late the trains are.
Only Simon says that he’s bored while the others gush. Between Simon’s criticism, being on first and the pointlessness of it all, she should’ve been at risk. She’s obviously got fans.

7. WAGNER – I like your speaking voice
Louis keeps mispronouncing his name and smiling about it. It’s really rude.
Wagner thinks so too and tells us so in his VT. Wagner also thinks he is beloved. I’m not sure if it’s a language barrier or a very useful coping mechanism but he has no idea how unpopular he is.
He starts off singing Viva Las Vegas. And he’s singing it very slowly, almost as if he’s trying to explain the lyrics rather than sing them. The runs near the end aren’t that bad. I wonder if he’ll have a week of actually singing (just like Same Difference, Jedward or Idol’s Sanjaya or Tim Urban) and get lots of praise. It goes without saying that he’s performing a montage – half of the performance is The Wonder of You and it’s not sung too terribly. There’s a fun dance routine with a fake wedding. I enjoyed this performance and I thought he sang better than all those below. I’m not joining a facebook campaign or anything but I’m glad he stayed this week.
DM Theres a church in Vegas that wants you to sing at it. DM wedding singer CC church singer SC liked it but hates himself for it
Wagner ‘if I sometimes sung out of time or out of tune, Im only human’ Ha! I like this motto. Mary is clearly not human so she cant even make that argument

8. TREYC – I like you’ve been kicked off
In her VT she says she’s ready to fight. That would explain why she always sounds so pained and violent. Treyc is sure the audience will love her performance. Way to be humble, Cohen. And way to show a complete lack of awareness. I think this is Treyc’s main problem. She must finish every screechy, dated performance thinking ‘that went really well’ and then not to try sing better next time, or at least sound like a cavewoman being raped. Dannii has a bit more nouse and thinks Treyc is boring. Treyc doesn’t care about having a niche or any marketability: she just wants the judges to tell her she can sing.
She wears a Disney princess wedding dress and sings Aerosmith. The first half is fine but towards the end she – you guessed it – starts shrieking and screaming in an unpleasant way.
Dannii and Simon repeat their comments from last week. There is no need for me to retype them.
Treyc ends up in the bottom two because the public clearly care about niches and marketability and care little for angry caterwauling. Cheryl gives her squinty, thoughtful deathstare before she sings. The look that usually only bathroom attendants see. She butchers Toni Braxton with little sobby notes. It is greatly inferior to the original or of Alexandra’s cover. It is strained and pointless. Her montage is painful – six botched powernotes in a row, no reason to feel anything but relief.

9. AIDEN – I like the songs you sing, when someone else sings them
Aiden tells us about how he is intense but then most eighteen years sit around and he misses his sister. Now that last garbled sentence isn’t me writing badly: what he said makes just as little sense as that. I am but a messenger! There’s then some debate about how intense he is. Louis and Danii say he is what he is, whereas Cheryl would rather he was versatile and less serial killer like. I must side with Cheryl on this one. If he was the great performer Dannii makes him about to be, he could try one week being less affected and batshit crazy.
He takes out his poorly repressed anger on Nothing Compares 2 U. Seriously, he cuts it up with a chainsaw and then makes a coat out of its skin. Somewhere Sinead O’Connor is trying to put the lotion in the basket. He tunelessly wails out of the corner of his mouth. There is a whole load of pyrotechnics onstage – perhaps to make the whole thing less boring and awful – but I would rather jump into one of the stage fires than be left alone with Aiden. Or listen to that again. He smiles throughout and after, which shows some improvement in his mental health.
Louis thinks he’s consistent and doesn’t mind that it’s the same basic performance every week. Cheryl can’t fault his singing. Or doesn’t want to. You could easily fault it. Preferably with serial killer references!

10. MARY – I like the supermarket you work at
In her VT, she kind of acknowledges how it’s surprising that people like her when she’s so monstrously fat. Oh and she tells us she was a pub singer. Never, Mary! I don’t believe it. You sound so contemporary! She tells us she’s doing a song that’s very modern and not a belter
Turns out she’s singing Faith Hill which is definitely not modern and definitely a belter. She sounds horrendous. She’s flat and hoarse and then yells. At points she sounds and looks like she’s about to cry. That only works as a strategy when you’re cute. Or, like Cher, are singing the song well
Dannii thinks it was iffy and Cheryl gives the pity praise ‘hope you’re here next week.’ Mary looks effing furious. Dermot calls her on her stinkface and she says she misses her daughter. I doubt daughter misses her. At least she only has to hear mum sing once a week now.